Mari's Pages

Friday, December 26, 2014

I woke up in the morning, early as my usual, just in time to see the sunrise and later the gorgeous blue clear sky. I got up and I felt exhausted, and both happy and sad. Happy for how the Christmas dinner went, for how my guests mingled and chatted, exchanged presents and, later, evil looks during the bingo game (you know, everyone is everyone's enemy when it comes to winning prizes…). I was also happy for the massive amount of foods and wine, good wine, we had, and for the fact that Christmas traditions were, once again, observed so that I didn't feel nostalgic. But I was also sad, because the house was empty, silent (exception made for my lovely neighbor upstairs you all know), suddenly stripped of any warmth. I was sad because melancholy caught up with me.

I also felt sorry because once I looked at what was left of the dinner of the day before, I realized that I totally forgot to offer some of the stuff my friends brought…I know that in the confusion of eating/drinking/talking triathlon one doesn't pay attention to a couple of things, but, well, you know, as a host I should be the one who keeps control of the situation, so I always feel bad when I open the fridge the day after and notice an unopened cake box…fortunately, this time, the volume of leftovers was manageable, and I am sure my lovely guests won't mind if I slowly finish the cheese and the cake (makes an awesome and festive breakfast!) within the next few days!

Those who had to leave to catch their last train, know that those of us who stayed longer shamelessly celebrated Cheesemas (cheese being another thing I forgot to put on the table, bad bad bad me for letting this one slip too)...

We were 19 people this year, all beautiful and fun people, gathering while a hint of snow tried but failed to coat Tokyo, Santa came to visit us and give each of us a secret present, and we even had grand prizes for the Tombola game (Italian bingo). I should have known that just one round wouldn't have been enough, I should have planned for a back-up round with more prizes, but, heh, I ran out of ideas when I got the presents for the first one already…fortunately we had chocolate and alcohol which stood a chance to be won. Who doesn't want to win a bottle of wine? Come on!

For the ones interested in the menu, here's a quick list of what we prepared: lasagna, arancini, potential veggie pies (these ones were my back-up plan should we run out of food, as they are quick and easy to bake on the spot), Swedish meatballs and saffron breads, cheese assortments, fried chicken, dumplings, super pretty cakes. I lost the count of how many bottles of wine we had…but I would say we were well covered.

These are times I wish I lived in a palace, one of those with a huge ball room so that I could invite hundreds of people each time.

Anyhow, now the thank you notes…

Thank you Chung for the alternative to turkey, your CFC (Chung's Fried Chicken) disappeared in no time. No leftovers. Ha!

Thank you Sanna and Fredrick for giving me yet another reason to love Sweden. After kex, marabou and berry jam, saffron bread earned a spot in my cupboard.

Thank you Andrew for keeping up with my healthy habits. I owe you a veggie pie.

Thank you Yi for the dumplings and for bringing your lovely wife and son. I hope we weren't overwhelmingly loud.

Thank you Jayson for introducing us to Mason, I am sure that form now on he'll feel loved. Just don't listen to Andrew.

Thank you Michiel for not being able to decide on which cake to buy. Don't fix that!

Thank you Diane for the cutest Christmas cake! Other than the truce beheading of the sugar Mickey Mouse, it felt like we were at Disneyland.

Thank you Anna for finding my fav Christmas sweet and for joining even though you had a heavily jet-lagged friend to take care of.

Thank you Mickael for the cheese, and for your personal rendition of the "Jingle bells" song. I will cold-sweat every time I will hear that song again from now.

Thank you all for the amazing selection of drinks, beers and wines, for bringing a present (nice to see all the many ideas people came up with), and above all for BEING present.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

I have used my own kitchen many times this year, cooking for friends. I've also had the pleasure to NOT cook dinner when invited. Also, I helped friends in their own kitchens, or brought food to friend's places. What was missing in my portfolio was to completely hijack a friend's kitchen. Fortunately, I know Kaoru, who, on Christmas eve, welcomed willing participants into her kitchen, trusting that it won't all come down to a disaster. Guess who ended up doing all the cooking…

Well, not entirely true. I did cook, okay, but without the help of three other wonderful women, especially when it came to operate Kaoru's new sci-fi, hi-fi, wi-fi? oven…join efforts always pay back.

There we are, with our aprons, our wooden spoons and a lot of minced meat to cook. I noticed that we had no munchies on the table. Which, to me, was a great thing for so many reasons, like no junk food means healthier dinner, people ate all the real food with more enjoyment as there weren't peanuts nor chips around, and, more importantly, I think this is the main reason why guests liked what I cooked…

Now I know what it feels like to run a restaurant.

The menu we chose wasn't particularly Christmasy, nor of a specific provenance, tradition-wise, as our main goal was to exploit and explore the magic oven functions. So, meat loaf, cheesy potato gratin, and -personal touch- the there-is-a-treat-not-a-threat-inside Sicilian arancini. I prepared them at home, though, or the smell of fried oil would stick to everyone's clothes. And we don't want that on a Christmas eve dinner. For a green touch, I also added some fresh avocado-shrimp Vietnamese rolls, light and fresh.

I hope I didn't leave to much of a mess behind, I realized I used every single item, tool, plate I came across (like all great cooks, hehe) without worrying about washing them…thanks Kaoru for inviting, Nat, Kaoru and Michelle for helping with the cooking, and everybody else for eating!

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Three detours, two fails. That is the evaluation of a stroll in Ginza, Tokyo's brand street, on a Sunday afternoon.

I went together with a group of Italian new friends for a walk along one of the most famous streets here in town, just to see what Christmas decorations they've put up this year and to have dinner somewhere nice and yet typical as it was Franca's last day in Tokyo and we wanted to get together for one last time.

First detour was to see the Italia-gai, or the little Italy area near Shiodome. Now, not that there is a really little Italy in Tokyo, but the name came from the fact that many Italian restaurants and shops are sitting right there next to each other, all around an Italian-like piazza with benches. I didn't find it when I led my friends to a see-it-with-your-own-very-eyes experience. I thought it disappeared, but, no, I just had to walk a bit longer along the road, I checked the maps later, and it's there. Fail number one.

Second detour was right in the centre of Ginza, where they have the biggest Uniqlo store in the world (12 floors of clothes and colors). The reason of the detour was NOT to shop, but rather to go to the top and check the view from up there. Too bad that the shop is entirely made of glass walls, bottom-up, and that the excess of lights made the outside practically impossible to see. Also, the electricity bill those guys get must also be impossible to see…Fail number two.

Later on our walk, a wall made of white panels and two black velvet curtains caught my attention…behind them was a free exhibition on the career of the fashion guru, god of fabric and fragrances, he himself Christian Dior. Yes, Christian Dior. Yes, free. I had to get in there and see. Detour number three, though, was an unexpected success.

We entered a 4-level buildings, three of which are as close to pitch dark, walls are black, ceiling is black, mannequins are black. The only light comes from the videos and demos set inside, plus some dim lights at strategic points to allow people to read captions and descriptions. All around glass boxes with Dior's creations, going from dresses to shoes, from bags to perfumes. Every aspect of the fashion designer's life was displayed: the beginning as art collector -and he made friends with many artists of his time, including the father of surrealism Salvador Dali', then his first clothes that changed the perception of femininity, the flow garden collections, the evolution from white to pink to red, the beautiful gala dresses, famous people wearing Dior dresses, his ties with Japan. Of note, I saw the emperor's wedding photograph, where the future empress wore a Dior wedding dress! I mean, to this point I was already captured. Oh, yes, maybe I should mention an important detail here: I possess the art of seaming and tailoring, I love creating my own clothes, I love the design process from the idea to the finishing touch, and I love haute couture, but this last bit was already clear. So, you can see the multiple layers of fascination this exhibition provoked. I mean, I was in heaven.

In the central area of the basement floor, French ladies were seaming and measuring fabric, and also preparing mini versions of the iconic fragrances that came out of the Dior maison. They spoke French, and Japanese interpreters translated to the visitors. The last floor was brightly lit, but since it had books and other buy-me stuff other than models of design bags, I guess they wanted to make sure people could see very well there…

I really wished I could try those dresses on display on, just for a second, just to see if I could fit in them…which would have not been possible at all after the glorious dumplings mix dinner we had afterwards…

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Cooking for others is something I love doing, you know. But sometimes having someone cooking for you is lovely, too.

In a beautiful urban setting, with pretty night views of Tokyo all around, 40 guests got together to celebrate the upcoming Christmas and new year holidays. The menu was all Italian from begin to end, and, being used to cook for big groups myself, I know that the girls who organized the dinner must have cooked for a loooong time, on top of the amount of work that must have gone into the planning, set up and all. Also, it was a nice mix of cuisines between the north and the south of Italy. The host, Bianca, brought her Emilia-Romagna traditions on the table with piadina (flat round bread, usually eaten folded in half and filled with raw ham and soft cheese), while the Neapolitan Imma surprised us with ricotta cheese tarts. We also had salty cupcakes, olives and sun dried tomatoes, salami, the nation-wide, par excellence Sunday lunch dish lasagna, oysters, roast beef accompanied with baked potatoes and Italian panettone and my Christmas favorite pandoro (a softer, sweeter fruits-and-raisin-less panettone variant). Everything was delicious, really.

The men of the house wore a nice "uniform" of black shirt and gold tie, that I think was a winner. The dress code for the event was red/gold. Not all the 40 guests sticked to the code, but overall the effort paid back. It was nice to see different shades of red and also some gold and glitter.

I think the best part of the dinner was the Tombola (Italian bingo-like game), for both the fun of playing the game and the surprise at how the Japanese understand it should be played. Oh, I do have to mention that we didn't just have a Tombola kit (cards, bowl with numbers): we had the Neapolitan Smorfia Tombola kit! What's smorfia, you might ask…it is a way to interpret night dreams and assign numbers to actions, things, events happening in them. The belief is that numbers "given" in dreams are lucky and if bet on at lotto would bring a sure win. The few Italians present knew well the rules and played accordingly, whereas the Japanese didn't really get the game and, Oh the horror!, some even ruined the cards, by marking their numbers with a huge hole (instead of using tiny items to cover the cards cell)…I could feel the pain in my friend's chest at seeing her kit being trashed.

Anyway, we played the game for quite a while until we had some winners, among whose we also had the one who made a colander out of her card (ironically, the holes she made with dry pasta). Us Italian unanimously asked for the prize to be withdrawn due to mishandling (and also in order to have yet another chance to win hehe), but, ehh…. However, luck came for us too, and in a joint effort to bring the good karma to our win we made group and eventually had one of us bringing a prize home too. In the name of team work, the prize shall be now split among the coalition members!

Switching to another topic, the Japanese can surprise for whatever bizarre reason. I met a Japanese guy who, of all places, lived for a short while in Sicily, and, of all places in Sicily, he lived in Ragusa, a small and rather boring town in the south. Really, it is a beautiful town with all its baroque buildings, cathedrals and such, but other than that is not very appealing especially to young crowds. Anyway, the fact alone that he was teaching Japanese there was not as surprising as the fact that he spoke Italian with Sicilian accent. He obviously just became my best Japanese friend.

To conclude, I was glad I did join the dinner, I was glad that for once I didn't have to cook nor bring anything, and the participation fee that we paid was well worth to the cent!

Monday, December 8, 2014

While experimenting in the kitchen sets new highs in my passion, it challenges my anxiety too.

I usually find that when I cook for myself, no matter how extreme I go, the results are always mind blowing. Nothing ever goes wrong, the mixing of flavors and ingredients just works. However, if I have to do the cooking for others, there come all my fears and inevitably something goes wrong.

It is is exactly what happened for yet another of my Cucina Marina events trying to surprise my guests with something special. I had in mind a menu made for two, where the food and the presentation would come together to celebrate love and sharing. From the tissues with printed hearts, to the spicy chocolate, nearly everything was feelings-infused.

Heart-shaped, cocoa-flavored crackers were to be served with various spreads, such as salmon, olive, pumpkin. I also decided to try and make some rye bread sticks, and those, out of surprise, came out really good for being a first-timer. The main dish was chicken tajine served with couscous. Not too much of a lovers' plate, I know, but I really wanted to cook that one. It came out just perfect.

Dessert was decided after lots of thinking and engineering, with the hope of a stunning presentation: yin-yang mousse. Delicious spicy chocolate smooth mousse coupled with the creamiest raspberry mousse, served on one plate for two.

So, where was the pitfall?

Well, the pink part of my mousse was not hard enough, so that my idea of turning out the dessert to present it standing on its own just wasn't applicable. One would say that novel things should be tested at least once before, right? And test I did. Only, when I tested it I realized I used too much thickening agent, so the second time I used a bit less. Apparently too little, this time.

On my defense, though: if the recipe requires 7 grams of something, how the hell am I going to measure that? Next time I have to work with such small amounts I will make sure to dose everything in the lab, where I can have a scale precise to the nanogram. And then I can say that my cooking was an act of science.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Autumn leaves will be gone soon, but before that happens there is something you really want to see this time of the year: Ginkgo Avenue ( Icho Namiki - 銀杏並木) in Aoyama, a road lined with, as the name suggests, tall ginkgo trees on both sides. My plan was to go there late in the afternoon and wait until the sun went down. Unfortunately the full power of the golden hour was reduced a lot by too many clouds, so that the gold didn't shine as much as I was hoping, but still the sight was beautiful.

The rain of the previous days didn't give me any hopes to find leaves still attached to the trees, so I was rather surprised to see that, yes, a few trees were almost bare, but most had a beautiful gold color (which looked orange in some of my photos) and many weren't even yellow yet!

One thing I liked was that on both sides of the road were not one, but two lines of trees. They were apart enough to leave room for a paved walkway, and still close enough to make sure branches on both sides met above our heads to create a gold (or green, depending on seasons) roof, occasional broken through by a ray of sun. If the wind blew gently, gold leaves would flicker their best yellow while falling softly, and there was NO WAY I could capture that moment.

One thing I didn't like, instead, was that the road wasn't closed to the traffic. I mean, I know that one can't just restrict the access to vehicles on a main road in the city center, but at the same time this steals all the magic...Maybe they have some hours of no traffic, or maybe on special days they can do that, I don't know. I think people would benefit of a few motor-free hours on a weekend day...it works wonders in Ginza, so I can only imagine what it could do here.

Too many people were there with me too, stopping at every step to make sure they had a picture of every single leaf of every single tree...that part was a bit sickening, I have to say, me and my friend Anna -new to town and motivated to see places- felt the oppressiveness and the anxiety of being surrounded by so many people. I really don't know what was worse, the people or the cars.

There is more than just an avenue to keep one entertained for a day, though: this is the area where the national 1964 olympic stadium is, together with the Meiji Jingu stadium and the Meiji Jingu park. The second main venue for those olympic games was the stadium built at Yoyogi, not far from here. This is already enough to keep olympic fans busy with a sports tour. This, until now, since in occasion of the 2020 olympic games, those complexes will have to be teared down and re-built. Anyway, in case sports is not in your primary interests, the mini version of Versailles palace in a Japanese garden Akasaka Residence is just a walk away from the Ginkgo Avenue, and that promises to be a great stop for nature and architecture lovers.

Because the idea was, again, to see the light at the end of the day, the morning time was spent around the park at Yoyogi where we also grabbed a bocadillo at the Spanish food festival. That park is always a great choice: always busy with people, dogs, events, performers, joggers, its trees being a beautiful combination of red, yellow, green and all other autumn shades. Not to mention the leaves dancing in the air at the faintest gust impossible to photograph.